Bears Stuff Rabbit Back In Majik`s Hat

October 08, 1990|By Skip Myslenski.

Just under four minutes remained now, and all the Green Bay Packers needed was a single miracle. One touchdown, that is all they needed to tie the Bears, and in Don Majkowski, the quarterback they call Majik, they had a performer more than acquainted with preternatural productions.

But it is impossible for even the most accomplished of magicians to weave spells while being whacked about like a pinball, and that was just the treatment that here awaited Majkowski. All Sunday, in the mist and gloaming of Soldier Field, he had been harassed and battered by the Bears defense, and now-his team waiting for him to author another fantastic finish-he was to be harassed and battered again in a series that symbolized his long afternoon.

On first down, from the Bears 20, he went to work against four linemen, two linebackers and five defensive backs, and as he threw short to wide receiver Sterling Sharpe, Richard Dent flew toward his face. Dent would end with his team`s only sack of the day, but his proximity to Majkowski, the tap he delivered to Majkowski characterized the pillaging he and his teammates wreaked all through Sunday.

``It`s hard for me to talk about what they did,`` Packers tackle Ken Ruettgers would later say. ``I wasn`t on the sidelines, and I don`t have an extra pair of eyes. But almost every play they had some kind of game on. They blitzed less, but stunted more on us than they did in the first game.``

Now, on second down, the Bears used another of their games, and this time Majkowski was forced to work against four linemen, one linebacker and six defensive backs. Again he dropped back under siege, here from the push of the full front four, and his hurried pass for Perry Kemp was easily broken up by Donnell Woolford.

``What you guys are going to write is he (Trace Armstrong) kicked my

(butt) again,`` Packers tackle Tony Mandarich would later say, and then he shrugged. ``Hey! He`s a good player, man. He`s good. I think he`s better than (Dan) Hampton. I don`t know if he`s better than (Steve) McMichael.

``But it didn`t take a brain surgeon to know we`d be passing out there, and it just seemed at times that four guys were playing good and one guy would break down. That`s all it takes. Then they rarely rushed straight upfield, and at times that caused us trouble.``

This time, with the Packers facing third down, the Bears rushed three linemen (two linebackers and six defensive backs were also in the game), but still Majkowski was forced to dance away from pressure and look for receivers while on the move. As he moved, Bears linebacker Ron Cox closed on him, and when he finally threw it into the ground at the feet of receiver Jeff Query, another tattoo was added to his already battered body.

With that the Packers punted, and then came the Bears` final touchdown that assured there would-on this day-be no Majik miracle. An interception by Lemuel Stinson and a personal foul on Majkowski when he made the tackle put the final exclamation point on the quarterback`s frustrating Sunday, and then he stood-face stolid-against a wall in the locker room.

Both his cheekbones were red, rubbed raw from the poundings he had absorbed, and his manner, his attitude said he had little interest in answering the questions now being thrown at him.

``I knew they had a good rush coming into the game, and they did a good job with it today,`` he would say in the longest answer of his short session with the notebooks and cameras.

``The rush made it difficult at times, but other times we did a pretty good job,`` he would later add.

Did you take a beating, he was then asked.

``Not really,`` he lied, and moments later he was gone for the showers. Behind him, now discarded and on the floor in front of his locker, was his flak jacket, the jacket that had just spent three hours absorbing blows from the Bears.

It, like the series of no miracle, was a fitting symbol for Don Majkowski`s Sunday at Soldier Field. For it was a Sunday he had spent under fire.